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Jim Banting is the Assistant Vice-Principal (Partnerships and Innovation) at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Banting completed his PhD in pharmacology at Queen’s in 1997. His research focused drugs that affected the cardio-vascular system. In a sign perhaps of things to come, the university’s technology transfer office saw commercial potential in his work, and helped him to found a company called Vaxis Therapeutics, which he and his co-founder ultimately sold to a specialty pharmaceutical firm. From there he “bounced around” the industry, as he puts it, working in business development while based in California, moving to Montreal for a year to work at a proteomics platform company, and then in 2006, before heading back to the United States in 2006s to work at Human Genome Sciences, one of the first biotech companies to sequence the human genome.

At Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation, Banting is a strong supporter of research partnerships, technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Given his background, it is not surprising that he works closely with innovators in the health sciences, but he is also involved with researchers in applied sciences, chemistry, and computer science, as well as AI and other technology. In addition to his work at Queen’s, he is active outside the university innovation ecosystem, providing support to startups in the region through the regional innovation centre Launch Lab, and We-Can, a group intended to encourage women entrepreneurs.

What’s the best part of your job?
The best part of my job is getting to work with talented professionals on the partnership and innovation team, supporting researchers in their goals to mobilize knowledge and hopefully answer some of the world's biggest challenges.

What’s one big thing researchers should know about QPI?
Researchers should talk to our office as early as they can. If they decide to publish something about their research before talking to us, that might actually limit their ability to file for global patent protection.

What is something you would tell any researcher to prepare before they come to you?
It's always helpful if a researcher can give us an overview of where their approach fits in a competitive landscape. They should know who else is doing it and why people should care about working with them in particular.